spuleeah

<Deleted>

spuleeah

Perhaps for you what really matters is what evidence there is to support this conclusion of yours.

spuleeah

How did you determine the truth of the moral principle you spout off above? Do you have evidence that leads you to this principle, or do you simply wish it to be true?

Agemegos

Sure there is. Tithes, for a start.

The freedom to enjoy forbidden pleasures such as fornication.

Two hours' sleep-in on Sunday.

The faculty for critical thinking.

The years of mind-numbing effort you have to put in to destroying your caacity for critical thinking if you are to believe something because you have made an arbitrary choice to believe in it. Look how long and dreary a life Pascal hand killing off his brain with religion.

And then, given that there are thousands of mutually-exclusive brands of Christian belief, and at least equally many non-Christian beliefs, all with equal evidentiary support, so that you have no rtional basis on which to choose among them, the chance that you will believe in the right God, Godess, or gods is vanishingly remote.

spuleeah

Wrong. I find contradictions horribly offensive. I find none in the scriptures. Many of you claim there are contradictions. I am not impressed by such claims. Claiming it doesn't make it so. Understanding the comprehesive teaching of the scripture is a life long endeavor. I'm quite sure many of you have never read the bible seriously. I have observed that many of you have no clue or concern over having a correct hermeneutical approach to the scriptures. Thus, your claims of contradiction for the most part are naive and empty.

spuleeah

Many of you attempt you use this argument and it's simply moronic. You might as well try to convince me that I could never distinquish an intelligible person from an unintelligible one. You might as well try to convince me that I could never point out my daughter in a line up. God is able to elect His children and enable them to hear His voice. You guys seem to assume that if your creator were to interact with you, whether in a chat room, on the phone, or through a book...that you wouldn't be able to recognize Him. Well I don't assume that....and I did recognize Him. You are right that there can be many misguided reasons people adopt religious beliefs. You are wrong to conclude that this fact paralyzes a person from being correctly guided to the truth. People who use this argument should shut their mouths and start reading.

spuleeah

If you'd like to see some of my thought on these topics, read the "Spuleaah vs. Prof" and get back with me on what more you want to know.

capsaicin67

Agemegos: Great summary of several very real costs. I spoke mostly to the last entry in my post--critical thinking. But I can tell you that growing up in a church going family, the preceding items were very vexing and frequently on my mind.

Sundays: supposed to be a day of rest all freaking ready!

Freedom to enjoy pleasures that are no one else's business. I absolutely do not need clergy [often ordinary people dressed funny] advising me what I find or do not find pleasing. Often clergy were not particularly deep or sophisticated people, though they were supposed to help the rest of us sort things out. Not.

A lot of pointless guilt was generated about insignificant issues. It was a real hindrance to personal development.

pharmakos

I have taken time to question my observational ability. I have probably taken more time to do so than you have. Perception is of great interest to me. I imagine that the only way that I could take "enough" time is if I were to change my system of beliefs to suit yours; i.e. "stop being deluded by the notion that you have any accumulation of reasons to disbelieve in God." I would argue that I am not deluded, but that you are; however, that would probably be a fruitless argument.

I do not choose to disbelieve in gods. I can try to believe in gods, but you would probably never be satisfied that I had sufficiently dedicated my being to the cause unless I arrived at the same conclustion that you do; i.e. that the paranormal is not demarcated from the physical.

I realize that to someone who has a commitment to imagined agents (e.g. you) the fact that it's not my choice is problematic because it doesn't correlate to your own "experiences".

Why would I believe anecdotal evidence from a person that I believe is deluded and or lying? I never suggested that I was open to a belief in gods. I am an atheist. I do not believe the proposition: There are gods/There is a god. If I were to be provided with what I judged to be a reasonable line of inquiry into gods I would gladly pursue it. I have never been provided with such a line of inquiry; i.e. one that did not require me to suspend my disbelief in the paranormal.
To clarify, I have had exposure to scripture. (I have had exposure to many religious texts for that matter.) As for "really studying the bible enough to really understand it", I imagine that I would never "really understand it", unless I understood it as you do.

If I were going to do a detailed reading of one scripture I would want to do a detailed reading of them all. Surprisingly, I have more interesting/productive things to do at the moment. Also, as the bible is, to the best of my knowledge, a sometimes well written, sometimes porrly written, work of fiction, why would I interpret it as anything but fiction? Compell me to believe that the bible, or any scripture, is not a work of fiction and I will reconsider studying it.

My first instinct is to say that my epistemology is more rigorous than yours. Ontological commitment to paranormal nonthings will never pass the rigour of my epistemology. I should clarify: for a paranormal nonthing to pass the rigor of my epistemology would require that it became a physical thing. I am a physical being, existing in a physical world. It is irrational (from my epistemology) to make an ontological commitment that is inconsistent with the physicality of my world.

But I am beginning to believe that it is more complex than my epistemology being more rigorous than yours. There is an irreconcilable difference in our epistemologies and in our ontologies. Yours allow you to have a commitment to imagined agents. Mine do not allow me to have a commitment to imagined agents. I demarcate the paranormal from the physical. You do not. It's an interesting difference. I believe that a scientific methodology would be perfect for studying this difference. I imagine that you disagree.

Questions:
1) There are many proposed gods, why do you believe in the one that you believe in?
2) Why do you believe that "the bible" is not a work of fiction?
3) Why do you believe that your bible is superior to other scriptures?

capsaicin67

spuleeah: ...core breach imminent...